Clarity
by Alis Volat Propris
Summary: She knew, with a startling sense of clarity. Oh yes, she knew exactly who Uchiha Itachi really was. The problem was that she couldn't seem to stop their illicit meetings anymore than she had started them.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I wanted to write something darker for Ita/Saku. Haha and of course with Valentines day looming over me it's not hard to find the inspiration for something morbid and a bit beyond sanity. And here we are. Sakura gets a bit of clarity.

She knew. She knew with a startling sense of clarity, a shocking sense of calm that ebbed and flowed through her veins who Uchiha Itachi really was. _Oh_ _yes_ she knew. Knew what he was capable of, knew what he had done. There was no one she could blame, no scapegoat but her own treacherous actions, her own doubt plagued mind, her conscious thoughts. It was utterly entirely and arbitrarily her fault no matter how she looked at it, or what picture she tried to paint of the situation at hand. She knew, but the problem was that she couldn't seem to stop.

Uchiha Itachi was her enemy. He was a man that had done horrible unspeakable acts against her country, against her teammates, her precious people. He had committed further acts of violence in joining the organization hell bent on destroying the way of the ninja. Akatsuki were the terrorists of their world, having neither a country or allegiance but to their own twisted thoughts and plans and motives. Further more, Uchiha Itachi was a cold and calloused man. He had killed in cold blood outright murdered his family, people that should have been close to him. He had tortured and interrogated. The man had been an anbu captain at the tender age of 13. Any emotions he'd had, must have been seared from him, stolen so long ago from wars past. He didn't show emotion, and he certainly wasn't the kind you'd ever want to mess with much less take home.

He was dangerous in any and every sense of the word, unpredictable, rational and yet utterly capable of acts of irrational behavior without any warning. Perhaps that was part of the appeal. Playing with fire, messing around with someone far more dangerous and deadly than you were, was a shot of adrenaline with every look, much less touch. Even as they did wanton things to each other she knew in the back of her mind that he could just as easily turn on her and kill her as he would kiss her. It kept her startlingly aware in the midst of a passion filled haze. He was as treacherous as a snake, the man holding allegiance to one person; himself. Not even the other Akatsuki members knew his true motives. He was a man who kept to himself.

_He would never love her._

Cognitively she acknowledged all of this. She accepted it even point blankly as fact. She knew that Uchiha Itachi simply wasn't capable of love. Given his past and the unspeakable acts he had committed for the sake of his own power, it truly was unrealistic of her to think him culpable of that heady emotion. He had willingly, proactively made that sacrifice in order to gain the ground he stood on now. And he was one of the most powerful shinobi in the world, without a doubt. Surely that should have had a bearing in her current decision making? The problem was that yet again, she couldn't stop herself. Her actions hadn't changed because of this costly information. No, she still met with him, in their forbidden tyrsts.

She still warmed his bed, still allowed him to run those treacherous hands across her body. Allowed him to make her scream his name, raking her nails down his back as he took her hard. He did things to her that lacked words. He was cruel, unyielding, drove her mad, and yet he was tender, maliable, and soft spoken, endearing in the way he looked at her, touched her. He deliberately played with her, toyed with her, made her beg to feed his already overwhelming ego. He was so damned arrogant, so damned proud of everything he did, of everything he'd done to her. And her heart exulted in the fact that he wasn't ashamed of what they did, of what they were still doing to each other. She felt for him, in spite of his calloused demeanor and general abrasiveness. Feel for him, she scoffed. That was a severe understatement.

Sakura had accepted that she loved him, as impossibly sick and twisted as that fact was. Given all of the information she had on him it _should _have been a sheer impossibility. He wasn't worth it, that was for god damn sure. Leave it to love to taint and paint every way she saw that cold hard information. She wasn't stupid enough to think that those things didn't matter. In her eyes they did, he had done the things she swore she would protect his victims from. She wasn't stupid enough to think he wouldn't turn on her, that he wouldn't use her and throw her away once he was done. This was all simply an amusement to him, a game of pleasure and pain so sweet that neither of them could let go just yet. But once he tired of her, it would end. He would probably kill her.

She knew all of the information, had memorized his files. Could quote which in incidents he'd been involved with, and which family had been sent a notice that their son or daughter, husband or wife wasn't coming home. She could explain details on the deaths, she herself had performed several of the autopsy's on the lifeless corpses, the life that had been leached by his hands. Somewhere along the way Uchiha Itachi had become something of an obcession. He fascinated her, a living mystery, shrouded in unanswered questions, puzzles that he left behind in the dead bodies. He was a man of many secrets, something she would never be able to wrap her mind around, much less logical rational thought. None of it mattered, though it did at the same time, in the way it changed her behavior…because it didn't. It simply didn't hinder her enough to stop this…him.

_He wouldn't love her._

She couldn't stop it even if she tried. And she had tried. She had walked away, several times, and others had suffered for it. She had tried to bring in other anbu members on her predicament and he had killed them all the same. He had found her, and swept her back into the game as he called it. It let her know what he thought of them. It should have given her the strength to break it off. It should have inspired her to hate him. To loathe him to her very core. A part of her would hate him, would always hate him, but it didn't overwhelm the part of her that loved him. That wanted to love him.

Uchiha Itachi was such a lonely man, that it made her heart ache. He was always alone, always bearing the burdens of his actions, the costly choices he had made. Somewhere inside of him was the child that was crying from the blood shed and death. She knew it, she simply knew it, as she knew her own name, her own convictions. She couldn't believe that anyone was entirely evil, completely corrupt. And therein lay her defeat at his hands. She couldn't give up on anyone. He was no exception. She loved him. Damn it, and it made it all the worse, all the more complicated. Knots within knots, tangles within tangles. Nothing was ever easy, nothing ever black and white anymore. Sakura longed for the days of simplicity, when friends were friends and enemies were enemies. But she'd even been naïve then. Sakura didn't want to live a lie anymore either. So she'd dirtied her hands, sullied herself, so she was a gray and as bloody as everyone else. She had a bitterness buried deep within her that Kakashi sensei might have been jealous of.

_He couldn't love her._

She wouldn't tell him of her inclined affections. She simply couldn't. After all what would it mean to a man who couldn't understand? Couldn't comprehend how she would feel. He could never reciprocate such feelings and so it was a useless endeavor to start with. He was a hard man, a tool of war that was tired of being used. He had joined Akatsuki after his disillusion with Konoha. He was more than likely incapable of love. And Sakura didn't need him to know beyond her own heart. It was enough for her that she knew she loved him. It was enough, but bittersweet knowledge nonetheless.

Sakura had developed something of a spine after having her heart trampled over so many times. After all, it was only a matter of time before she finally learned her lesson and guarded herself a little more carefully. She was tired of the state of what the men of her life had left her in after they abandoned Sakura was cool and aloof, guarded and careful around men now. Obviously not enough to keep clan murdering heartless S class Nins out, but she hadn't just let him trample over her and step on her. No Itachi had been gradual, like a frog boiling in a pot.

She was truly pathetic. Wretched. He was everything she stood against. She should have hated herself time and time again after he sated himself. After he had fully had his way with her, trailed burning kisses down her entire body's length. She should feel disgusted to smell him on her skin, to feel the bruises and love bites he left, to remember his taste and sigh with longing. She should…Gods she should do anything but be in the position she was, cheating on the love of her country with a man who'd betrayed it so long ago…but she couldn't.

_He could never love her._

Perhaps she really was weak in that sense. Perhaps she had always been weak in that sense. Sakura was a girl that believed in love above all things. It had never mattered who and in all honesty Sakura had a knack for loving those who didn't love, couldn't love, weren't capable of returning such heartfelt feelings. But Sakura also had the curse of holding on. She refused to let go when she should, she held on and on and on, hurting herself in the process until the very bitter end. She cherished her feelings too much to let go. It was a bitter, vicious vindictive cycle that played like a bad record in the surface of her memories. It had happened to Sasuke, who was long gone, dead by Kabuto's hand. Once she found something to fixate on it was hard to stop. A craving, an addiction.

Uchiha Itachi wasn't a simple craving. No, addiction didn't begin to describe the delectable feelings that would course through her, when her name came from his lips. Those thin lips that burned as they laved at her tender skin leaving marks on her body and soul. The feel of those hot lips, hard and needy, demanding respect and attention from her own. He was a disease, festering, attacking her cellular structure until she looked like him, resembled him, reflected him. She couldn't tear herself away, couldn't come apart from him.

_But it didn't matter. It wasn't important. _

She dropped into the surrounding area, crouching as she sheltered her fall. She rose, sensing him as he intentionally let her sense him. She shivered in the cold, the dark light of the moon hard, the light from the lightning bugs the only other source available in the shadows. She closed her eyes as she felt the lingering burning of those Sharingan eyes on her. His lips brushed tantalizing tingles down her neck, as he pulled her anbu turtle neck lower.

"Itachi" She said, cherishing his name on her lips.

"_Sakura_.." He replied with the delicious lilting tenor.

And she was lost again in him as he led her, as she followed him into the darkness.

_Because Sakura loved him._


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Aww crap. Here I go again. This story is freaking dark, but you were already warned in the first chapter. There's a lot of interpretation on what Itachi did and why he did it. Is it right? I don't know, but I liked it as I wrote it so, here's my interpreted Itachi on why he did what he did. I really need to work on Cherry Picking.

Music of the Update: 3 doors down, seether, linkin park and my chemical romance

To Deadlydiva and Purpleshinigami my beloved betamuse and faithful reader = ) you should thank them for this chapter

PS. Fighter girl-Hyuuga: I listened to the song as I read through it again and I liked it. Thanks for sharing!

He shouldn't be doing this. There was nothing that he could do to justify his behavior should he be caught in the act. She served no point. She had no grand purpose, scheme, or example that he could make of her. She wasn't powerful, she certainly wasn't a genius or a prodigy. She had no kekkei genkai, she wasn't a jinchuriki. She wasn't even a target on their list of possible threats. She had no credible standing, her name and clan insignificant in the ninja world.

_Weakness. _

Should he be caught with her, things would become far more complicated. Sure he could twist the facts. If he needed to lie he could come up with something about her, some reason he kept her so _very_ close, kept her hidden from their all knowing eyes; from_ his_ suspicions. There was always a story to be told, a reason he could come up with that they would buy should the need arise. He would keep her, and do what was necessary to keep her. Uchiha Itachi had absolutely no qualms with lying through his teeth.

For years, he had been taught, trained to kill, to lie, to steal, to murder, to assassinate without so much as blinking an eyelash. For his country he had been abused, physically, sexually, he had been tortured, raped in mind and soul. He was a tool, a weapon of destruction according to Konoha, according to the rules of men and the way of Ninja; the lifestyle of ninja. He had committed unspeakable acts of violence. Grown men, hardened men would have broken under the experiences that he had as a 13 year old boy, as an anbu captain. He had been covered in the blood of his enemies, forced to lay on the corpses of his victims he'd buried to avoid being caught. He'd assassinated children, tortured them when needed to.

To be in Anbu required one to do whatever it would take in order to complete a do as the Hokage bid, without word or question, without protest no matter how unsightly such an act might appear on a surface level. Anbu were not taught to question their superiors, their betters. It was war, which suspended all ordinary rules of combat. They were taught to do as they were told and to do whatever it took to accomplish such means to an end.

_It was Weakness. _

Anbu were silent stealthy killers, hunters, dogs of the Ninja heads designed in such a way to act as the hands and feet of the village administering justice given to them by the Hokage himself. Uchiha Itachi had been such a man. He had done his duty, had fulfilled his obligation to his country over and over and over again. He had done well over what was simply expected, had willingly committed such crass acts, done such unspeakable things in the name of the village, the kage who controlled justice. He had paid for his patriotism in the blood and flesh and bone of those he left behind in his wake.

He was the prodigy of his clan, the bright and bold future of the Uchiha that were plotting revenge whilst they used Konoha for it's resources and benefited from their fashionable status as administrators of justice, keepers of the very peace they were about to overthrow in the village. He was a genius, supposed to be the first to pave the way, to bring about a great and glorious future for the people of fire. The Uchiha simply wanted _him_, expected him to bring about that future for their own ideals. They placed their dreams on the shoulders of others, using them, disposing of them when their usefulness had been served. Itachi smirked as he thought back on it. _Oh how idealism dies so very young_.

It was such a privilege, such a great honor for one so young and so talented to be admitted into Anbu. Never mind his age, or his propensity for good. It didn't matter as ninja were tools to be used and discarded when they ceased to serve their purpose. His mother had never been so proud. She, who had been a ninja, a sub par ninja, who had never experienced the life of a cold blooded killer, had never witnessed true bloody battle first hand. His mother hadn't tarnished her hands with a child's blood, had never taken a life that hadn't tried for her own. His father had deliberately misled Mikoto on the glories of Anbu, though it hadn't taken much. She had supported Fugaku in the revolt against Konoha, after all. Blood was thicker than anything else in Mikoto's eyes; she had been a weak willed woman, happily led and easily deceived.

Anbu had never been graced with such a silent killer, a deadly boy without apparent emotion. Itachi, who was so far above all the other skills of the previous anbu members, that he made captain in a week after being admitted into Anbu. He wasn't merely top of his class, but top of any of the rookies he'd faced in his generation of ninja, going so far as to surpass most of the previous generation in his small amount of years. He wasn't just smart, but absolutely brilliant, gifted, with the mind of a god, able to strategize and see moves coming and counter attack without hesitation. His defense was absolute, his offense was better if such were actually possible. He was a terror, a monster of a boy by his teammates, because he was so contradictory. How could death come so swiftly in the hands of one so small? One who appeared so innocent as most young boys could?

He was always silent, rarely speaking, rarely needing to and that was part of their fear. They expected anger, terror, attitude. Itachi had none to give. The other Anbu members were terrified, horrified though they would never, _could_ never say it directly to him. They didn't need to. Itachi could read the subtle unspoken emotions that flickered across their faces, in their body movements as if they were screaming to him, shouting it. It was apparent in the way they looked at him as he took off his mask. The way they watched him as he slaughtered people, men woman or children without a twitch, even a glimmer of regret in those blood red Sharingan. Even the fool of his own flesh and blood, his dog of a family member, who had been watching him since being admitted into Anbu, was awed, cowed by him.

Uchiha Itachi had commanded and demanded the respect of the Anbu operatives within a week of his arrival to the elite ninja group. Shisui had never seen anyone like him, and never would the rest of his short lived life. Uchiha Shisui, his best friend, loyal to the Uchiha, even above him, loyal to traitors above their own comradery. Itachi had saved Shisui countless times on their missions. They had promised to look out for each other and Itachi had fool heartedly believed such innocuous praddle.

If only Itachi had understood how true those words really meant in light of the situation. He had found it utterly ironic when he'd had to be the one to kill Shisui, lest the others learn of his secret mission. He had strangled Shisui himself, choked the life out of him to avoid his secret, his real mission from getting into the hands of his treacherous family. He'd dumped the body in the lake disposing of the evidence and creating his own. Whatever had been left of Itachi's innocence died with Shisui's death. Shisui's death had been the stepping stone, the start of the path that allowed him to kill his family.

And he had gained the Mangekyou because of it. It wasn't as if Itachi hadn't been aware of the ability before. He had never imagined he would gain such an unsightly ability in the way he had. But he would not be stopped now. He had come too far. He knew his mission, he was a tool, a device that would complete his kage's will. He would not allow the Uchiha to revolt. He would not let them sully the Uchiha name in history even if he had to kill every last one of them to do it. It was an order, but it had been a pleasure to serve justice. He had culled the clan, purging it of the power sucking, pathetic scheming leeches who lacked the nerve to declare war outright, instead of skulking in the shadows like the dogs they were.

It suited Madara to kill the Uchiha clan, to cull those who had sided with the dirty Senju and betrayed him originally. It was too late for them to find reason. They had already been dirtied, tainted by the Senju dogs, bought and bound by their hollow philosophy. No Madara would start all over, would create a new world order, would repopulate the Uchiha clan. And Itachi had sealed his fate, signing over his soul as he had made such a costly deal with Madara. It hadn't mattered that he'd made the deal with Madara because he was so disillusioned with what he had done, been forced to do in the name of justice that he would have left anyways. He had joined the organization Akatsuki in payment for Madara. He had helped create madness.

Uchiha Itachi was tired of being used, of being toyed with. People were more than tools, more than weapons to be used and tossed aside so easily. They had tried to train all the emotion out of him. They had nearly succeeded. When he had left Konoha Itachi had promised himself that he would become his own person. He would not be a tool of justice, he would find his own. Itachi answered to no one, gave no one any account. He choose his allegiances, did as he pleased, decided his own fate in life.

_She was Weakness. _

He shouldn't have started this between them. But it was hard to let go. Itachi had never indulged himself in anything. He never liked sweets, had never had a taste for candy or sugar. He was punished if he went after such things leaving him angry at the offending goodness that stood in his way. It became a matter of will, a matter of discipline to avoid such temptation. Not because they punished him, but because he could. He was a simple man with simple tastes. Then she had exploded into his world of grey, painting color and light in her wake. And he found he preferred her world of colors, her sweet taste to anything else he'd discovered.

And that was why he couldn't stop it. Oh they had tried. On both sides they had tried, though she would never know how many times he had lifted his kunai to her sleeping form and turned, unable to slay her while she murmured his name so reassuringly in her sleep. She had left several times, feeling like she had betrayed her village and he had been forced to kill the anbu members she'd brought into their little game, bring her back where he kept her secret, safe from her own world. So long as she thought he was toying with her, she would never know the truth of the situation, would never suspect that it was he who could not let go.

_But it was inconsequential._

She was weakness, his weakness, the only uncertainty he allowed. Sakura was the only thing he had that didn't fit, or make sense in his world. She was the only exception. No one else. Only Her. His. She was his and he had _made_ her his, ensured that she was his by breaking her himself. He had broken her until she could see none other than him. Even if she should leave now, even if she could muster the will to back out of this, on him, she would never be able to get his taste off of her. He had marked her soul. That knowledge left him confident.

He would not give her up to anyone. She was the first thing he had decided on for no other reason but himself. He had been forced into Akatsuki even if he had been disillusioned at the time and might have joined of his own accord. No one had forced him into this illicit love affair with her. He had willingly made the steps himself. Had willingly crossed the lines, blurred those lines between them. Itachi had so easily damned himself, damned her by involving her in his life. She was his flickering light, what kept his world from being consumed by the shadows, kept him from drowning in the flood of his victims. He clung to her because he simply couldn't save himself anymore. It was selfish of him. She would drown with him, they would drown together. His darkness would extinguish her flickering light plunging them both headlong in darkness unending.

_Because she was His. _

Even knowing all of this, he would not let her would not leave him. Or rather she could not leave him, he should say. It was too late to turn back now. She was incapable of it, so helplessly, hopelessly lost in him that she couldn't find her way back. He would not let her leave either, preferring their small amount of psuedo harmony to the truth of the world he lived in, the person he had been forced to become to keep his sanity. And so if Itachi had to lie, steal, kill, rape, torture, to keep her with him then so be it. It was only more of the same he had done his entire life, only this time he would do it because he wished it so, not because he was carrying out someone else's will.

She was his for the making, and his for the breaking.

_And He was never going to let her go._


End file.
